The postwar ruins (Roofs ripped off,
The charred walls.) do not resemble
Skeletons, stripped by the predators—
The gnawed-upon scraps of ribs,
Crushed to dust cranial bones.
Only that the same birds
Flock to the remains
As to scorched ground.

2003

To be struck in the forest by a flash of light, where there’s crunch
And crackling, rustle and creaking underfoot, and the hush
That brings to mind wheezes and groans, whispering and sighs,
Where every measly bush is disguised as
God knows what, and the half-rotten trunk—a dangerous maw.
Do not such deliberate and persistent fears shade
Of other depredations: burning, prickling, poison,
And of what multitude of others still?

Mikhail Eremin has lived in St. Petersburg since before WW II, writing and publishing very sparsely for over a half-century in a peculiar kind of highly respected anonymity, his work having the reputation of being one of the most hermetically “difficult” in all of Russian poetry. He was awarded the prestigious Andrei Bely Prize for poetry in 1998 and, in the fall of 2014, a residency at the American Academy in Rome by the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund. His oeuvre, consisting entirely of eight-line “free verse,” has been issued by Pushkinskiy Fond in six volumes (so far) each one modestly titled Poems. [Image: Nikolai Simonovsky]

Alex Cigale’s own English-language poems appear widely, including in the Colorado Review, The Common, and The Literary Review. His translations of Russian Silver Age and Contemporary prose and poetry have appeared in the Harvard Review Online,Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, The Hopkins Review, Michigan Quarterly,Modern Poetry in Translation, PEN America, TriQuarterly, and World Literature Today. From 2011-2013, he was an Assistant Profesor at the American University of Central Asia. A 2015 NEA Literary Translation Fellow for his work on Mikhail Eremin, he also edited the Spring 2015 Russia Issue of Atlanta Review. His first full book, Russian Absurd: Daniil Kharms, Selected Writings came out this year in the Northwestern University Press World Classics series.

Like what you read? Help WWB bring you the best new writing from around the world.

Magazine

Follow Us

Information

Words without Borders opens doors to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the best international literature. Every month we publish select prose and poetry on our site. In addition we develop print anthologies, work with educators to bring literature in translation into classrooms, host events with foreign authors, and maintain an extensive archive of global writing.